Social drinking games have been in existence since the introduction of alcoholic beverages, with the purpose of reducing participants' boredom through entertainment. For decades, one of the most popular drinking games continues to be Beer Pong (also known as Beirut).
While there are many variations, the game generally features two clusters of cups set at opposite ends of a table, usually a ping pong table. The cluster of cups can be arranged in any order, but the most typical arrangement is in the shape of a triangle with the upper rims of the cups touching one another. A beverage, usually beer, is poured into each cup to keep it from sliding or falling over. Two teams at each end of the table stand behind their cluster of cups, and throw balls (or strike them with a table tennis paddle) across the table at the opposing team's cluster of cups. When a team member lands a ball into the opposing team's cup, a member on the opposing team must remove that cup from their cluster and drink the beverage inside or pay some other penalty. The cup is then discarded from the original cluster. The first team to eliminate all of the cups from the opposing team's cluster of cups wins the game.
To make the game more interesting and increase the level of difficulty dedicated game table have been developed and various mechanisms for moving the cluster of cups have been developed. In some of these devices, the cluster of cups is placed in a tray with cup holder slots and a perimeter wall and moved together as a group. In one such example, the cup holder tray spins the cluster of cups around on a fixed axis. In another such example, the cup holder tray slides back and forth on a track that is custom built into the table. In other devices, a magnetic platform used to keep the cups in place.
All of these systems keep all of the cups bunched together in one place and do not significantly change the nature or difficulty of the game. Moreover, in some of these systems the mechanism for moving the cup tray are open to the outside and may become wet with the beverage (generally beer) being used for the game or spilled on the table by the participants. These mechanisms can become fouled in this manner and may be difficult to clean.
What is needed in the art is an animated apparatus for playing games like beer pong where the cups are animated to move individually, rather than bunched together in a group, and where the mechanism for moving the cups is protected from being fouled by spilled beverages.